Diageo lobbies change to Tennessee whiskey law

Published Mon, Mar 17 2014 6:14 PM EDT

Diageo, maker of 's George Dickel, the nation's second best-selling Tennessee whiskey, is lobbying Tennessee legislators to ease laws that define "Tennessee whiskey" so other distillers can experiment with new techniques, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

What makes "Tennessee whiskey" so different from any other whiskey?

Yuriko Nakao | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The law as it stands requires that the whiskey is made from at least 51 percent corn, filtered through maple charcoal and aged in new, charred oak barrels, but that just so happens to be the recipe for Brown-Forman's Jack Daniel's, the top-selling American whiskey brand in the U.S..

In a news release Friday, Brown-Forman claimed said a change in the law would "dramatically diminish the quality and integrity'' of Tennessee whiskey and make it inferior to bourbon.

Diageo, on the other hand, said, while its George Dickel brand is in compliance with the current law, and that it has no plans to change its recipe.